He held the mirror before him the face reflected was haggard, with hollow, vacant eyes. His hair was a matted mess, and his body was gaunt from neglect.
The mattress he sat upon was unfit for sleep. The room was a shambles, littered with trash and damp with decay.
"I think I'll just die," he muttered.
My eyes drifted to the mirror, staring at a self that wasn't even fit to be seen.
"I wish for a better life than this. To not be locked away, and to not be starving."
He leaned against the mirror, eyes fluttering shut. Resigned.
"If only I had been born to wealthy parents, maybe I wouldn't be like this."
He opened his eyes and looked back into the glass, then froze. The mattress felt strange, flickering like a broken television screen.
"What is this? A... glitch?"
Startled and confused, he reached out to touch the bed. It felt unreal. Suddenly, the entire room began to undergo the same distortion.
"What's happening!?"
He bolted toward the door, but his efforts were futile. His eyes grew heavy, and he collapsed on his very last step before reaching the exit. Darkness.
His eyes pulled open slowly. The ceiling was no longer a damp roof, but an expanse of expensive gold engravings and a dazzling crystal chandelier. The air no longer carried the stench of rotting trash; instead, it smelled of lavender and costly candles.
He sat up, trying to process the situation. A glitch, and now—where was he? He climbed out of the large, plush bed and walked toward a grand mirror framed in gold.
He touched the cold surface of the glass. The face before him was a total stranger. A sharp jawline, pale skin, and neatly styled hair as white as snow. He was a world away from the skeletal figure in that confinement cell.
"Who... is this?" he whispered. Even his voice sounded deeper, more melodic.
"Did I actually transmigrate like in those novels? That means..." A wide grin spread across his face.
"I've transmigrated into the body of a wealthy noble! Finally, fate is on my side. I can live in comfort now."
The grin hadn't even begun to fade when rhythmic footsteps echoed from behind the large bedroom door. Instincts from his old life made him stiffen instantly.
He hadn't had time to get back to the bed, so he stood frozen near the mirror.
The muffled conversation of servants outside drifted clearly into the silence of the vast room.
"Is the young master still not awake?" asked a female voice that sounded utterly bored.
"Not yet. Even though the doctor said his condition is stable," another voice replied, this time with a cynical edge. "But whatever. Whether he wakes up or not, he's still paralyzed. There's not much a cripple like him can do except waste the rest of his life in that fancy bed."
A demeaning little laugh followed before their footsteps faded into the distance.
He stood deathly still. His eyes widened. He looked down at his two feet, which had just moments ago walked so fluidly from the bed to the mirror. He tried lifting a foot. He could. He tried standing on his tiptoes. He could. It was perfectly normal.
"Paralyzed...?" he whispered in disbelief. "I can walk. Why do they say this person is paralyzed?"
He looked back at his reflection. The handsome face with snow-white hair looked like a prince from a fairy tale. But the servant's words kept ringing in his head.
"Did I hear wrong? Or... is this body supposed to be paralyzed?"
Just as he was about to take another step to be sure, his head throbbed violently. Something surged into his memory. It wasn't a complete recollection, but a wave of sheer, overwhelming terror. It didn't belong to him.
"Is this... a feeling left behind by the owner of this body?"
A cold sensation crawled up his spine. A powerful instinct from the remnants of the original soul's consciousness seemed to scream inside his head: "DO NOT STAND UP!"
He flinched. Panicked, he scrambled backward and dove back onto the soft mattress.
With his breath hitching, he stared frantically into the empty air.
"Dammit, if this is really a transmigration, shouldn't there be something? A System? A blue panel? A guide screen? Give me something, anything!" he hissed in frustration.
The air around him remained empty. No robotic voice, no holographic text came to his aid. Only a luxury that felt like it was suffocating him.
"I have to know what's going on here. I don't even know this guy's name, dammit."
His eyes then landed on a dark wooden nightstand. There was a stack of papers with a broken blood-red wax seal.
"What's in there...?"
Driven by a desperate need for information, he grabbed the top sheet of the stack.
[MEDICAL REPORT: NOCTHREIN EDEVANE.
STATUS: TOTAL MOTOR NERVE PARALYSIS - PERMANENT]
"Nocthrein Edevane?"
As he mouthed the name, his memory seemed to explode. The visualization of the letter faded, replaced by painful flashes of memory. He saw the glint of a blade, the stinging scent of medicine, and a man in a formal suit staring at his legs with a gaze as cold as ice. Like he was inspecting a broken object. Without a shred of empathy.
The fear he felt earlier now doubled. In this house, if he were caught being able to walk, he would no longer be viewed as a luxury ornament, but as something far worse.
"Dammit. I have no idea what kind of world I've just stepped into."